we grew. we grow.

growing up feels like finding your own two feet and falling a lot.

growing up looks ugly, sometimes, often.

growing up is disappointing people. growing up is being ok with that. 

growing up begins to feel a lot like a hamster wheel if you step back too far and study it for too long.

growing up sounds much like a rushing waterfall of voices that crowd your mind. growing up is realizing most of them are either your own voice or imagined voices. 

growing up feels like money is the best and worst thing in life and financial independence has few equals.

growing up reminds you often that you are responsible for cleaning up your own messes, heroes only exist in fiction, friends don't wear capes and have real human limits, but will reach further for you than you thought they would.

growing up sometimes means being proud of yourself even when outside voices are silent

growing up finds heartbreak often and accepts that this is where we find our humanity. growing up is biting the bullet for the truth.

growing up looks like humiliation when you realize that all that time you thought your life was normal everyone else knew it wasn't.

growing up is loving your abnormality.

growing up is losing the ones you love most to death, to life, to resignation. growing up is realizing they came from dirt just like you.

growing up is feeling the breath being pulled out of you from every direction as demands are made, expectations are raised, and adulthood is knocking evermore.

growing up is finding your balance, catching your breath, slowing down, quieting the demands, lowering the expectations to where reality can see its true face, and finding joy in the midst of it all.

growing up is hard. growing up is funny. growing up is painful. growing up is exciting. growing up is disappointing. growing up is surprising. growing up is exhausting. growing up is beautiful. growing up is forever. 

growing up is what it is. mine.